"What must I do, Master?" She hoped it was the right note.
"Kiss my feet."
It was an obvious start. Dorinda performed the slave obeisance with all the grace and willingness she could muster. She felt pleased with herself. If only Mark would play it as a game.. It might be fun. She knelt before him waiting.
"Now wash them with your lips and tongue. Swallow. Don’t spit!"
The game vanished unborn. He had breached her defence right at the start. Mark wore only the skimpiest sandals. His feet were well soiled. Obedience would degrade, perhaps nauseate. Tears came to her eyes. She had wanted so much to excel.
He saunted to the wooden chest. Sat comfortably leaning back against the wall and kicked off one sandal. She knew his searching eyes could read her thoughts. She followed, kneeling at his feet, yet certain she could not do what was required of her. She looked up at him piteously blinking back the tears.
"Would it help if I whipped you now?" he asked kindly.
The incongruity was a groad. With a bitter sob of determination Dorinda blindly and feverishly began the impossible.
But nothing is impossible. Telling Terry of it afterwards she coined the quip that one toe led to another and when a girl had sucked one she had sucked ‘em all. She was amazed at the detergent quality of saliva and the innocent pinkness of each toe as she released it from her lips. She hoped, miserably, that whatever it was she was forced to swallow would not poison her. It was probably just Kyrexos dust. The job was long. By the time her lips and tongue had cleaned both feet she had had time to reflect that a girl can make infinite adjustments if she is sufficiently frightened.
There was no rest. He stood up. "Remove my briefs. Clean what you find there. Do no more than that. Then replace."
Dorinda had expected this. She was aware of the importance men attached to this act. The order came as a less of a shock than the previous one. She dealt with her humiliation completely. In handling his swimming briefs she was obliged also to handle her hated handcuffs again. He made no move to help. He had placed them under the belt. She must leave them as she found them. Her fingers on the steel, she wondered how long to would be before she felt their bite again. She knelt back on her heels, hoping for approval.
Mark spat on the floor.
He must want to whip her very much. He would tax her tolerance until it broke. He had not spoken. But she knew what she must do. She bent swiftly and cleansed the spot on the floor with a willing tongue.
"Run and fetch me a drink, slave girl."
Dorinda looked up aghast.
Mark laughed at her surprise. "Why shouldn’t a slave fetch her master a drink? Run along now. You know the way. Terry will mix it for you. Don’t dawdle."
She was half way to the door when he added an afterthought. "Escape if you want. I’ll hunt you down in an hour. The penalty will be my initials branded on your thigh. I don’t mind a bit. A slave girl should be branded with her master’s symbol."
Dorinda fled.
"Is he being beastly to you, darling?" Terry was unashamedly quivering with curiosity. She listened intently as a shamed Dorinda gave details.
"I expect it could be worse, dear," she consoled musingly as she mixed the drink. "He’s made me do all those things, y’know. He thinks of the darndest things… I say, darling. Why didn’t you escape?"
"Thanks, I don’t want to be branded… Terry? Would he really do it?"
For answer the younger girl lifted her very short skirt and bared a thigh and a hip. Three letters were burned deep and clean.
"M.A.E. Mark Atherton Esmond," Terry declaimed proudly as though displaying an Olympic trophy. "He did it to me a couple of years ago when I got angry over something and stayed overnight with a girlfriend."
"You let him?"
"Didn’t have anything to say about it," the owner of the brand said complacently. "The dear boy tied me so I couldn’t even twitch. He’ll do the same for you. Saves a lot of fuss."
The incredulous initiate lifted the brimming glass and returned to her training and her master.
It was a long litany of order and compliance. It covered many acts and many attributes. It even embraced a demand that she recite a long speech extemporaneously extolling the virtues of her master and her own abasement’s as a slave. Dorinda felt sure she rated at least a ninety mark on that one. But Mark, throughout all her ordeal, kept a poker face – refusing to show either approval or displeasure. When it was done he said: "Stand up. Back a few paces. Then stand stiff at attention, facing me. Hands on your side. Head up. Breasts well out."
Dorinda obeyed. She had caught his emphasis on the word breasts instead of chest. She displayed her twin treasures as provocatively as possible.
It was a male pose. Thus strangely shaming to a girl. She exposed too much! Dorinda hoped he would not make her hold it long. It was also tiring. But she was doubly thankful for the brief covering, her master had allowed her to wear. She knew herself hungering for a word of praise. She felt she had earned it.
"You think you have been doing rather well and deserve a pat on the back, aren’t you?" Marked asked discerningly.
Dorinda flushed. Was she that obvious? "I did hope I’d please you," she admitted.
"Sort of puts you one up on me, eh?" His voice was thoughtful.
She saw the strap. "No! Please! I tried hard."
"Feel any different?"
"Just soiled."
He nodded understandingly. Still expressionless.
"Kneel before me. Hold out your arms. Ask to be handcuffed."
Dorinda suspected she had not won, or even emerged with honours. But slaves don’t win. They are not supposed to. Tears stung her eyes. Her future loomed less than rosy. The laughing boy had gone. The man before whome she stood so shamingly was implacably male. But there was no use resisting now. Hastily she knelt. "Please master, lock the handcuffs on my wrists. Obediently she proffered her hands and watched dejectedly as the were ironed.
"Over to the pulley!"
There was an inevitability about it. Dorinda stood, stretched taut, and wondered why they had not done whatever they had to do when she had been similarly strung up that morning. In spite of determination she shivered. She knew a leg was trembling and wondered if he could see. It was a terrible way to be fastened before a man.
"You know you are going to be whipped, don’t you?"
He was very serious.
"Yes." Now that the awful moment had come she was too weary of it all to plead. So she asked: "Why?"
"We have done what we have just done because it’s a sort of preamble we have to wade through. For your benefit, really. Didn’t actually change a thing, did it?"
"You mean it didn’t change me?" She saw his point and wished otherwise. She knew herself the same girl she had been yesterday or the day before. Her own words had summed up the total effect of what he had made her do. ‘just soiled.’ That was all. But she was desperately afraid. "You think that if you whip me enough I’ll become a slave in spirit as well as fact?" She knew her question held all the dubiety she felt.
"Any other suggestions?" He sounded quite willing to listen.
"That’s not fair. " Dorinda exclaimed. "I’ve never been whipped. I don’t know what that does to a girl, except cut her skin. I’m scared stiff right now. I have to wonder why you can’t be satisfied by the way I worked at what you wanted. I honestly tried to please. And I’ll keep on trying as long as you want to keep me a prisoner. I know I can’t escape. I think that knowledge is the most potent thing with me. It’s pretty final when you think of it. But it makes me a prisoner, not a slave." She peaked at him earnestly from between her strained arms. "I suppose you wouldn’t consider becoming your slave because I like you… Sort of like Terry?"
"I’m not looking for another sister."
"I’d shrug my shoulders if I could," Dorinda affirmed passionately. "I’m marooned on an island and held captive by a fantasy. I have no place to go except where you take me. I have to accept and understand that you will work your fantasy out on me. Whether I like it or not I have to play Galatea to your Pygmalion. If that calls for me to be whipped, then whipped I’ll be. You’d better get on with it…" She looked him in the eye and added the single word: "Darling…"